“Well, what, you don’t want me?” Daphne was saying, looking so small and determined with her chin up and tears in her eyes.
“No!” Reggie stabbed a finger on the table between them. “You’re sixteen and if that’s not bad enough, you’re human.”
“I won’t be sixteen forever,” she snapped back.
“But you will still be human.”
Daphne looked about prepared to shout something back when her gaze landed on Octavian. She darted around the table towards him. “How is she? Is she okay? Can I see her?”
“No!” Reggie snapped before Octavian could speak. “How many times must you be told that you’re human?”
Daphne whirled on him, orange curls swinging around her shoulders. “Probably about the same number of times as—”
“How is she?” his mother interjected.
“She thinks she’s a monster and that you all hate her,” he said, shooting a sharp glare at his brother, who had the decency to grimace.
“We don’t hate her,” his mother said as though needing to convince him. “And she isn’t a monster.”
“I know that, but she won’t believe me.”
“Let me talk to her,” Daphne said. “Once she sees that I’m—”
“No!” Four people said at once.
Daphne threw her hands up. “Well, I have to do something because you.” She stabbed Octavian in the chest with a finger. “Turned my BFF into a bloodsucking Demon. Thanks for that.”
“I told you it doesn’t work that way,” Reggie retorted, exasperated.
“I don’t care how it works. My friend is hurting and needs me and you guys are stopping me—”
“From getting killed? Yeah we’re real assholes like that,” Gideon muttered.
She shot him a sharp glower before rounding on Reggie. “It’s your fault this happened. You hurt her feelings.”
Flabbergasted, Reggie threw his hands up. “Are you kidding me? I saved your life.”
“Riley wouldn’t have hurt me.”
“Yeah, maybe the old Riley, but this isn’t the same Riley.”
“She is still my friend.”
Jaw set in sharp angles that could cut glass, Reggie bared his teeth. “Fine. Do whatever you want. I don’t care. I give up.” He stormed to the door. Made it almost all the way there before he pivoted on his heel and marched back. “You are not going near her until she learns to control her thirst.”
Daphne shot him a withering stare. “Try and stop me. I have four brothers, pal, and I will take your ass down.”
With a snarl that made Octavian almost pity his brother, Reggie shoved both hands through his hair and rounded on his mother. “Talk to her. Tell her she’s being unreasonable and pigheaded.”
“I honestly have no idea what we’re supposed to do, truth be told.” She looked to her husband, the plea in her eyes. “Liam?”
Sitting at the table with Gideon and Magnus, their father just sighed heavily. “I think Reggie’s right, Daphne. Octavian was able to pull Riley back this time, but no one can guarantee that will be the case next time. She’s only going to get stronger and right now, you are too much temptation for her.”
The defeat in the other girl’s shoulders jerked at Octavian’s heart strings. “So, I can’t see her anymore?”
“Not at all,” his mother said quickly. “We just have to make sure her thirst is fully under control before she can be around you.”
Slowly, she nodded. “Okay, but how will I know when?”
“I’ll come get you, Daph,” Reggie said, anger replaced with a softness that Octavian understood all too well. “I promise.”
Octavian didn’t wait around to hear the rest. He walked back into the kitchen. The blood on the stove had just begun to steam. He snatched it off the fire, grabbed a cup from the shelf and gingerly filled it with the thick, crimson liquid. Dumping the dirty sauce pan into the sink and filling it with water, he took his glass and went up to check on Riley.
In the bedroom, he stopped on the threshold, his gaze moving over the empty bed. Concern welled up a second before the sound of water running drew his attention to the bathroom. He set the glass down on the nightstand and went to the door. He knuckled softly.
“Riley?” Nothing but the soft rush of water returned his curiosity. Brows drawn now, he tried again.
And when his knock was returned with silence, all thoughts of manners were swallowed by a fast boiling panic. He pushed into the room and was immediately slammed in the face with a wall of steam so thick it plastered his clothes to his skin and made sweat bead across his brow.
“Riley?”
As the steam receded, escaping into the room behind him, he saw her, huddled at the bottom of the tub, knees drawn to her chest, arms over her head as water drummed down over her in a steady pulse. Crouched there, with her hair a wet carpet down her slender back, the color a harsh contrast to her paleness, she seemed so small, so helpless. Seeing her broke his heart. It infuriated him. It made him want to kill Duncan all over again. But all those thoughts were brutally shoved aside as he focused on what was most important.
Kicking off his shoes, his socks and shirt, he crawled into the tub with her.
Chapter 46
Her head came up, her eyes red rimmed. “Octavian?”
Without answering her, he reached past her and put the stopper into the hole. Then he put his arms around her and drew her into the V between his legs and held her against his chest. She curled into him, resting her head against his shoulder as the water rose around them.
“I could smell her,” she whispered. “I thought a shower…”
He stroked the wet tendrils of hair off her cheek. “Would you like me to leave?”
She shook her head. “You make everything seem less insane when you’re with me.”
He hadn’t realized how worried he’d been that she’d turn him away until she’d spoken. He released the breath he’d been holding and disguised it by planting a kiss to her crown.
“Tell me something,” she whispered.
“Like what?”
Her slim shoulders moved in a shrug. “Anything. What were you like as a kid?”
A smile touched his mouth. “You expect me to remember that far back?”
She raised her head and peered up into his face. “Don’t you?”
It was his turn to shrug. “I remember being in the water a lot, trying to get away from Gideon and Magnus.”
“Why were you trying to get away from them?” she asked.
“Have you met them?” Her laugh made him grin. “They were always following me around, trying to do whatever I was doing and being a general pain in the ass.”
“I always wanted siblings. I always thought that if I could have one other person with me, I wouldn’t feel so alone all the time.”
“Were you and your father close?”
She shook her head. “We lived in the same house, but we never talked. I think I was just always so angry with him that I didn’t want to. I have never met any family as close as yours.”
He chuckled. “We’re not always close. We fight and kick each other’s asses all the time.”
“Yes, but you have each other and I know you’d do anything for any of them.”
He made a deliberating sound. “Yeah, maybe.” He combed back the damp hairs at her temple. “Did you know Daphne was Reggie’s mate?”
To his surprise, Riley nodded. “I’ve known for a little while.”
“And you never told me?”
The surprise and hurt in his tone had her head coming up. “I didn’t think it was my place to tell. Reggie was so upset about it that I—”
He chuckled. “I’m teasing.” He drew her back.
She snuggled into place. “Are you comfortable?”
Not in the least, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. “Yeah, fine.”
She lightly glided her hand up his jean clad thigh. “You shouldn’t wear your jeans in the tub. It will cut the circu
lation in your legs and you could die.”
“The only way I’ll die is if they spontaneously combust while I’m wearing them.” Which was a great possibility if she kept wiggling against him like that.
Up until that moment, he’d done a fairly good job of ignoring the fact that she was completely naked, and that she was pressed intimately against areas that hadn’t seen action in a damn long time. But if she kept accidently letting her naked flesh graze his… they were going to have problems.
“Octavian?”
Lost in the turmoil of his own mind, he hadn’t heard her calling him until she’d drawn back to peer into his face. Man he hoped he wasn’t blushing.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah?”
“I asked what happened after I got bitten. I don’t remember anything after that point.”
Grateful for the safe topic, he told her everything from the moment he brought her inside after she’d been bitten to the moment he injected Duncan’s blood into her. He left nothing out.
When he finished, she pulled away from him and reached to shut off the shower. The water had reached her shoulders, safely covering everything that was a distraction to him.
“So Antonius had no idea what orders Duncan was talking about?” she asked, turning back to him.
Shifting up higher, Octavian nodded. “He swore it wasn’t him.”
Contemplation screwed up her features as she stared down at the water. “Just because he says he didn’t do it doesn’t mean he doesn’t know who did.” She glanced up at him. “His answers were very evasive.”
“I have no doubt that he knows who ordered Duncan. What I want to know is who is powerful enough to order a strigoi Master to do anything and what is Antonius getting in return?”
“I just hope it’s over,” she whispered.
He reached for her and pulled her forward to him. “It is. There is nothing anyone can do now. You’re not human anymore and there is no law against a Caster being with a strigoi.”
Riley smiled. Her small hands splayed across his chest. “So what’s it like dating a dead chic?”
He grinned. “Pretty damn hot.”
Watching her throw her head back and laugh, deep and carefree made everything they’d been through worth it. He was even beginning to get used to the fangs. The part that made him doubt he was awake was his newfound freedom to reach up and trace the curve of her exposed throat, to kiss the slopes of her shoulders, or skim his fingers over the bumps on her spine. Those were things he didn’t think he’d ever get used to.
He was still studying her when she sobered and peered down at him. She shook her head, her smile big and bright across her face. “That’s so sweet yet so disgusting.”
Grinning, he leaned over, putting his nose inches from hers. “You know what’s really disgusting?”
Her eyes danced with laughter. “What?”
He dropped his voice as though telling her a secret. “The way these jeans are chafing all my no-no places.”
That sent her into another peal of giggles that had her doubling over and clutching her stomach as he rose to his feet. The water shrunk considerably with the loss of his weight.
“Are you coming or staying?” he asked, hands already unfastening the snaps on his jeans.
“Coming,” she said, still laughing. She fumbled for the plug and yanked it out as he climbed out, splashing half the tub water across the bathroom floor.
Hurriedly, he yanked the itchy, soaking material down his legs and dropped them into the sink, grateful to be out of them at last. Naked, he padded to the built in wall of shelves containing all his and, he noticed with an odd flutter in his chest, Riley’s things. He snatched one towel and slung it around his waist before grabbing another and making his way back to Riley.
She was watching when he returned to her, her red eyes void of their earlier mirth and filled with a dark intensity at made him very obvious of the fact that she was sitting in a rapidly draining tub with nothing but water clinging to her skin.
“You need to rest.” It was more of a reminder to himself than it was for her. Maybe if he said it enough times, he wouldn’t feel the powerful urge to jump her. No damn such luck.
His stunning goddess said nothing and when he offered her his hand, she took it, rising from the waters the way he always pictured Aphrodite rising from the foams of the ocean. She stood before him with nothing but hunger in her eyes and her eyes on him. For a moment, he forgot why he was being so noble, especially when she wanted him as badly as he wanted her.
With hands that shook only slightly, he folded her in the towel and drew her out of the tub. Maybe it was him or maybe it was her, but somehow, every inch of her grazed against him before she was finally settled with her feet on the floor.
“Not tonight,” he told her, holding her as close as he could without tempting either of them further.
A small, pink tongue snaked out and dampened lips he was already having a hell of a time looking away from. “Why?”
Damn that was a good question. He wished he had an equally good answer.
“Because you just woke up. You’re scared and confused and you need to rest.” As he spoke, he sewed confidence into each word. “We have forever and we don’t have to rush any…”
It was deliberate. He’d bet the last piece of his soul on it. The towel had been perfectly wrapped around her when he’d fastened it. Perfectly wrapped towels did not just accidently slip.
“Okay,” she murmured so innocently that he gritted his jaw. His hands clenched, trembling at his sides as she brushed past him and stalked into their room, the towel a white scrap of fabric that may as well have not been there at all.
How the hell did she do that? Those towels were enormous. They went all the way from waist to calve on him and she was shorter than he was. Damn it all to Hell, it should have been a freaking tent on her.
Smug little witch!
Blood pumped through his veins in hot rivers that spurred his heart into a gallop and his legs into moving. He was across the room before he could rein in the predator demanding a taste. Her yelp of surprise when he grabbed her arm, twisted her around and flung her back on the bed was sweet, delicious music, as was the helpless little gasp she gave when he tore the towel away and pinned her arms over her head.
“Little girls shouldn’t play dangerous games,” he growled into her ear. “Not when I am so much better at them.”
To prove it, he relinquished one hand and elected it to travel down her side, tracing her soft curves with just the tips of his fingers. The shudder of her body, her breathy little gasps were like shots of adrenaline and lust pumped straight into places that wanted to be in her.
He could take her. There was nothing stopping him, nothing keeping him from sinking so deep inside her that they both saw stars. She would welcome him. He knew she wanted it as badly as he did just from the way she was moving against the hand he was inching up to the apex of her thighs. His name whispered from her lips in a desperate, pleading chant that spilled through him like honey. He raised his head, needing to see her eyes, needing to watch when he gave her the heavens and it shattered over her face. Nothing short of that was enough. She needed to know it was his hands on her and no one else’s.
“Look at me, Riley,” he commanded when her lashes slipped closed, shutting him out.
The sooty lashes swept up immediately, widening in surprise and desire when her compliance was rewarded by penetration of his fingers. His name choked on her lips as her body arched into his hand. Her heat burned his skin.
“Please…” she whispered.
He anchored his thumb over the pleasure point and held the nub down as he searched her darkened eyes. “What, Riley?”
She dampened her lips. “Kiss me.”
His gaze went to her mouth, moist from her tongue and already parted, a welcoming banquet all for him. He released all holds on her. Shame became a chokehold on his heart as her undemanding willingness glowed in her eyes. The strips of
air he’d inhaled whispered out in a low, animalistic whine as he realized how selfish he’d been with her.
“Octavian?” She reached for him. The coolness of her palm touched the side of a face that hadn’t seen a razor in weeks.
He grimaced, pulling away. He dragged the sheets over her, covering every inch of her mesmerizing body from the temptation of his eyes.
She sat up, clutching the sheets to her chest. Her confusion and hurt cut into him. “What’s wrong?”
Octavian's Undoing (Sons of Judgment) Page 46